10 Essentials: Miike Snow

We admit it, we were hooked on Miike Snow’s "Animal." And no wonder—the song, from their 2009 self-titled album, features the euphoric voice of Andrew Wyatt and production by Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg, the guys who won a Grammy for the wiggly bass and strident strings on Britney Spears’s "Toxic." But as Karlsson tells GQ, the first album was just a warm-up. "The first one, we were just writing song by song and trying to put out some music," Karlsson says. "We had no idea if anyone would want to hear it. But the second one, we knew that it was going to be an album and that definitely changed the way it felt going into the writing process."

To support their album-focused approach, Miike Snow will be rolling out installments of a video series about a man named Jean Noel who is abducted by powdered wig-wearing humanoid children from space. Think Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555, but live-action. With parts one and two already out, Wyatt says they’ll continue "until we run out of money and I have to play Jean Noel. I’ve been trying to get my lats to grow for the role but it just won’t happen."

If you didn’t catch them at Ultra, keep an eye out for Miike Snow’s U.S. tour dates, and if you’re lucky enough to be in London in April, don’t miss the new ballet, "Carbon Life," co-composed by Wyatt and Mark Ronson. In the meantime, read on for the essential elements of the Miike Snow equation.

*1. Stockholm Archipelago*

Wyatt: They both have houses out there that they go to on the weekend. You can only get there by boat, and there’s no cars allowed.

Karlsson: My island is like 20 houses, but I can actually just row over to Pontus’s house.

Winnberg: I live there off and on, when the weather allows it. Sometimes in the wintertime you can drive out there on the ice, but there’s a bit of gambling going on. The people who have lived there for years and years know exactly what to do. We have the island cowboy, Ake, and everybody asks Ake when it’s time to do this or that.

*2. Robotberget*

Karlsson: Robotberget is our studio we built four or five years ago. It means "Robot Mountain" and it’s actually the title of the only song we’ve finished that we haven’t released. We lost it.

Winnberg: I think in a sense it’s about something we always come back to—machines and emotions. It’s about a sad robot, basically. [laughs]

Karlsson: I have a big collection of robots there, too. It’s not a mountain, yet—

Wyatt: It’s close! It’s a hill.

*3. Mariatorget*

Karlsson: This is in the south of Stockholm and it’s where the three studios we worked in for the record are and also our label. Mellqvist is our favorite café where we always hang out. Benny Andersson from ABBA has his hotel Rival there where everyone stays when they come to visit us.

Winnberg: That’s kind of the center where all the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo tourists are starting. [laughs] It’s kind of fun because that whole area is where the movie and the books take place.

4. The Blob*

Karlsson: This is the huge monster synth we built for this tour. Pontus is one of the main engineers.

Winnberg: It’s a 9x9 foot synthesizer we perform around. We did it together with the guys at Teenage Engineering and one of the engineers from EMS, who had the first digital recording facility in the 60s. It’s built partly with new parts and we also managed to buy some of Giorgio Moroder’s old stuff, so those parts are built into it.

*5. Division Street in Chinatown*

Wyatt: It’s a cool street that’s never changed. It still feels like New York to me.

I tried to get a house down there, and while I was doing the renovations the owner of the building showed up and because he was running an illegal mahjong gambling ring on the second floor, he put the kibosh on it once he saw I was a white guy. I should’ve told him, "I’m horrible at mahjong; I’ll lose millions in this gambling ring!" But I give him props anyway—he’s holding the fuckin’ neighborhood down. I don’t have any resentments toward him; I still love Division Street. I love the Fuleen Seafood restaurant there. It looks like the laundry room of a prison, but it’s got incredible food.

*6. Cherry Trees*

Wyatt: Beautiful blossoms in the springtime, hearty, robust fruit in August. When I was a kid growing up we had a cherry tree in the backyard, 100 years old. I climbed it, and it gave shade in the summertime and excellent cherries in the late summer. Having cherry blossoms around gives the best springtime vibe ever.

*7. The La’s*

Wyatt: It’s this band from Liverpool that came out with their only record in 1990. They have a really famous song, [sings] "There She Goes." That album is still in the top five rock and roll albums of all time for me. They only had one album because Lee Mavers, the singer, kind of just got too weird. He’s married now and has a bunch of kids and just lives off the royalties for that song. I would love to meet him—it would be a huge honor. When Liam Gallagher met him he said to Lee Mavers, [in English accent] "It’s a great honor to meet you," and Lee Mavers said, "I bet it is." Because Oasis totally copied The La’s; you can hear it.

*8. Ingrid*

Karlsson: Ingrid is our label together with a bunch of friends: Lykke Li, Peter Bjorn and John, Teddybears...

Wyatt: It’s a Swedish collective of musicians that I somehow stumbled into.

Karlsson: Andrew’s kind of Swedish.

Wyatt: Swede-ish.

Winnberg: We founded it because we make music and then we just want to throw it out there. The whole strategy behind releasing takes too much time and we don’t have it, and we all share that problem. It’s rolling out now, so in April we’re releasing a collection of songs in which all the members are represented.

*9. Pontus’s Daughter*

Winnberg: Whenever we retire she’s going to form Miike Snow version 2.0. She’s a huge fan, probably our youngest. She’s been very involved in touring, recording—all the process, she’s just hanging out. She’ll be five in May.

*10. The Miike Snow Crew*

Wyatt: Great news: We’ve just hired George Foreman. He’s going to be handling all of our security services—

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